Fay­ola Fras­er

“My ray of sun­shine.”

De­siree Con­nor-Ed­wards crafti­ly sticks in an ex­tra word when asked to de­scribe her jovial hus­band in three sim­ple words. Not able to hide his smile, Ed­wards re­torts with the com­plaint that she got one more word than him, as he strug­gled to cap­ture his love for her in on­ly three.

The years that fol­lowed their mar­riage and Ed­wards’ sep­sis, heel bone re­moval and re­cov­ery brought chal­lenges anew, and Ed­wards threw his sup­port be­hind Con­nor-Ed­wards (and she him) with the in­ex­tin­guish­able light he car­ries, dur­ing her pe­ri­ods of dis­tress.

“I brought you a bag full of man­go, but I know you di­a­bet­ic eh…so don’t eat it all at once.”

With a cheery wink and his mis­chie­vous of­fer­ing, De­siree Con­nor Ed­wards’ fa­ther left his son-in-law, Ray­mond, with a bag full of boun­ty to tide him over dur­ing his stay at the San­gre Grande Hos­pi­tal. Four months af­ter his ad­mis­sion in June 2014, Ed­wards was re­leased from the hos­pi­tal, in­to the lov­ing care of his fam­i­ly.

Soon af­ter his re­lease, on De­cem­ber 1, 2014, the cou­ple was forced yet again to con­front the dif­fi­cult loss of Con­nor-Ed­wards’ beloved fa­ther, the gen­tle and mis­chie­vous man­go bear­er, to a brain aneurysm. Con­nor-Ed­wards, as his on­ly child in Trinidad at the time, was re­spon­si­ble for han­dling all the le­gal process­es alone while mourn­ing the death of her fa­ther, “and I re­al­ly leaned on Ray­mond. He guid­ed me through the process, he was my rock.”

Ed­wards’ per­son­al chal­lenge to con­tend with af­ter be­ing re­leased from the hos­pi­tal, was nav­i­gat­ing life once again, now from his wheel­chair. De­spite some of life’s most for­mi­da­ble chal­lenges, this cou­ple re­mains guid­ed by their un­yield­ing faith in God and un­re­lent­ing sup­port for each oth­er. Dur­ing his re­cov­ery, while sup­port­ing his wife through her fa­ther’s pass­ing, Ed­wards be­gan to strate­gize how he would piv­ot, and con­tin­ue to work and care for his fam­i­ly.

He be­lieves it is no co­in­ci­dence that in 2008, he be­gan work­ing on what be­came a mul­ti-year project­ - putting to­geth­er equip­ment and out­fit­ting a room in his house as a record­ing stu­dio. By the time 2014 came and he was no longer able to go in­to work, he reg­is­tered a com­pa­ny, Ed­wards Me­dia Ser­vices. Un­sure of whether he would get any work, he be­lieved that his pre­vi­ous ef­forts to put to­geth­er this stu­dio were not a co­in­ci­dence, and that God was prepar­ing him to face this very mo­ment. Ed­wards, his well-rec­og­nized voice a silky, boom­ing bari­tone, ef­fort­less­ly land­ed a va­ri­ety of jobs that har­nessed his unique voice, in­clud­ing me­dia con­sul­tan­cies and com­mer­cial voiceovers.

For the Ed­wards’, 2015 was a year of re­cov­ery, growth and ex­pan­sion, and they set­tled in­to their new re­al­i­ty. Wheel­chair aside, Ed­wards was able to main­tain his in­de­pen­dence and pro­vide for his fam­i­ly, sup­port­ed as al­ways by his lov­ing wife.

Ac­cord­ing to the UK Na­tion­al Health Ser­vice, 3-10 in every 100 cas­es of can­cer are caused by a ge­net­ic pre­dis­po­si­tion. With his fa­ther suf­fer­ing from colon can­cer, and Ed­wards be­ing di­ag­nosed with the same at age 28, there was al­ready a strong case in their fam­i­ly for ge­net­ic pre­dis­po­si­tion to the dis­ease. Richard Ed­wards, Ray­mond’s “ba­by” broth­er, was a Cruise Di­rec­tor on the Roy­al Caribbean Cruise Ship, and was first di­ag­nosed with stage II col­orec­tal can­cer in 2014.

Af­ter a pe­ri­od of treat­ment, rest and re­cov­ery, Richard went back to work, but re­turned home in 2016, com­plain­ing of sci­at­i­ca pain. Fol­low­ing rounds of tests, he was even­tu­al­ly di­ag­nosed with stage IV col­orec­tal can­cer. Com­ing from a fam­i­ly of war­riors, Richard fought his can­cer head on, and did rounds of chemother­a­py while still main­tain­ing his com­mit­ment to the gym and his course of study for his pi­lot’s li­cence.

Com­mit­ted as al­ways to sup­port, Con­nor-Ed­wards would drop and pick up Richard from all his chemother­a­py ap­point­ments. The cou­ple, well-used to sup­port­ing one an­oth­er, now be­came the sup­port sys­tem for a third par­ty.

“He was my lit­tle broth­er, he was six years younger than me and I was proud to be his broth­er,” Ed­wards con­tem­plates, “every­thing he did, he did it so well. I still feel our re­la­tion­ship now”.

Richard even­tu­al­ly sought treat­ment in Mi­a­mi, but on June 2, 2017, he passed away at age 37. Con­nor Ed­wards and Ed­wards were now faced with the un­fath­omable chal­lenge of bury­ing who had be­come “their” lit­tle broth­er. Each hav­ing had a spe­cial re­la­tion­ship with Richard, they drew clos­er to­geth­er dur­ing this pe­ri­od, find­ing so­lace in each oth­er, prop­ping each oth­er up, and shar­ing in grief.

Al­though Ed­wards was not aware of it at the time, the most im­por­tant les­son Richard left back for him would serve him in years to come.

Ret­ro­spec­tive­ly, Ed­wards ex­plains that “I learned so much from him, see­ing first hand how he han­dled chemother­a­py, which even­tu­al­ly in­spired me to be­lieve I could han­dle my own treat­ment.”

At this junc­ture, the cou­ple’s fam­i­ly and friends be­lieved that their mar­riage had en­dured enough chal­lenges and tests for a life­time. But there were more afoot. In Au­gust 2019, Con­nor-Ed­wards ex­pressed her ur­gent con­cern that her hus­band’s body seemed to be swelling. This swelling caused his body to be so bloat­ed, the skin be­gan to tear and re­lease flu­ids. Ed­wards was fo­cused on com­plet­ing his Car­ifes­ta com­mit­ment, but im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter, went to the doc­tor and was drained of 30 pounds of flu­id on the spot.

The doc­tor told Ed­wards that his kid­neys were not func­tion­ing prop­er­ly, caus­ing the wa­ter re­ten­tion, gave him med­ica­tion along with a re­fer­ral to a nephrol­o­gist, and he re­turned home. Ed­wards no­ticed his stool had dark­ened, at­tribut­ing it to the kid­ney med­ica­tions, but his doc­tor rec­om­mend­ed a colonoscopy. Dur­ing the colonoscopy, Ed­wards heard the doc­tor gasp “ooop!”, and looked across to the screen to see a big black mass, sit­ting lo­cal­ized in his trans­verse colon. Un­like his first can­cer di­ag­no­sis in 2003, this time, the can­cer barged silent­ly in­to his body, “not mak­ing a sound, not pre­sent­ing any signs.”

‘God puts us in po­si­tion

So, on their 12th wed­ding an­niver­sary, Oc­to­ber 20, 2019, Ed­wards gift­ed his wife and him­self, with the gift of re­newed life. He un­der­went a pro­ce­dure on that day to re­move his colon and at­tach his small in­tes­tine to his anus, rid­ding him­self of any high like­li­hood that the can­cer would re­turn to the colon.

“My can­cer likes my colon,” Ray­mond said mat­ter-of-fact­ly, “so my doc­tor said let’s take it all out.”

The day af­ter Ed­wards’ surgery, in Oc­to­ber 2019, Con­nor-Ed­wards re­ceived a shock­ing phone call, with the news that her old­er sis­ter in Col­orado had been di­ag­nosed with breast can­cer. Both her sis­ter and Ed­wards were set to be­gin chemother­a­py in 2020, as the can­cer had mi­grat­ed to one of Ed­wards’ lymph nodes. For any av­er­age per­son, the weight of both hus­band and sis­ter si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly bat­tling can­cer would be enough to over­whelm and break the spir­it. But re­mem­ber that De­siree Con­nor-Ed­wards is no av­er­age woman.

Hav­ing to be the sup­port sys­tem for both of them, Con­nor-Ed­wards, ever stead­fast in her faith, was un­fazed, and be­lieved God “put me in po­si­tion,” so she could trans­fer her un­der­stand­ing and ex­pe­ri­ences with the ill­ness to care for and ben­e­fit both of her loved ones.

Al­though she nev­er saw her­self as a care­tak­er, Ed­wards ex­pressed his ad­mi­ra­tion for the way, “she cared for me with love, re­spect and dig­ni­ty,” a nat­ur­al gift that his wife has, which she at­trib­ut­es to her moth­er’s ex­am­ple.

Ed­wards’ chemother­a­py was sched­uled to be­gin on Feb­ru­ary 14, Valen­tine’s Day, 2020, but due to an equip­ment short­age at the hos­pi­tal, it was resched­uled to March 2020. Con­nor- Ed­wards was booked to leave Trinidad on March 8, 2020 to sup­port her sis­ter who was al­so un­der­go­ing chemother­a­py, and who did not have a part­ner’s as­sis­tance to help with her three-year old son. Ed­wards as­sured her that he would be able and strong enough to han­dle chemother­a­py with­out her for the month, along with the sup­port of his moth­er, dri­ver and close friend.

En­ter a glob­al pan­dem­ic, to up­end care­ful­ly laid plans. Ed­wards, a news junkie, anx­ious­ly watched the spread of COVID-19 through­out the world on his tele­vi­sion, urg­ing Con­nor-Ed­wards to re­turn with haste. Con­nor-Ed­wards, hap­py to be in Col­orado with her sis­ter,in­sist­ed that his con­cern was lean­ing to­wards the dra­mat­ic and she would re­turn by month’s end. Al­though Ed­wards and Con­nor-Ed­wards are un­shake­able as a cou­ple, they are not im­mune to the “she doh lis­ten to me” squab­bles that cou­ples uni­ver­sal­ly ex­pe­ri­ence.

On March 21, 2020, Gov­ern­ment an­nounced that bor­ders would close the fol­low­ing day, and Con­nor-Ed­wards was un­able to get a flight from Col­orado that re­turned in time. She re­mained stuck in Col­orado for the next nine months.

A sig­nif­i­cant el­e­ment of the cou­ple’s re­la­tion­ship is that, al­though they are each oth­ers’ “rocks”, and “no­body com­ing in be­tween the two of us,” they al­so thrive in­de­pen­dent­ly, feel whole in them­selves, and be­lieve this to be a cor­ner­stone in any mar­riage. Faced with the chal­lenge of their pro­longed phys­i­cal sep­a­ra­tion, Con­nor-Ed­wards ad­mit­ted for the first time, “that was hard,” as she felt non­stop guilt and wor­ry that Ed­wards was un­der­go­ing chemo alone. With a grin, Ed­wards in­sist­ed “I was cool,” and he ap­plied the lessons he learned from his broth­er in cop­ing with chemo.

Chan­nel­ing his usu­al pos­i­tiv­i­ty, he took the “op­por­tu­ni­ty to try my hand at cook­ing,” even start­ing a Face­book page ded­i­cat­ed to his new­found pas­sion for try­ing ex­cit­ing recipes.

Lim­it­ing his cir­cle be­cause of his com­pro­mised im­mune sys­tem, and di­a­betes, he on­ly saw one of his friends (who dropped treats to his doorstep), his dri­ver and his moth­er dur­ing that pe­ri­od. He went through chemo valiant­ly, cook­ing for him­self and main­tain­ing as much nor­mal­cy as pos­si­ble.

Mean­while, Con­nor-Ed­wards, al­though talk­ing to Ray­mond mul­ti­ple times a day, be­lieved she was “put there (in Col­orado) by God for a rea­son,” as her sis­ter had a much more dif­fi­cult time cop­ing with the pro­ce­dures than her hus­band.

To­geth­er again with love at the cen­tre

Af­ter re­turn­ing to Trinidad on a repa­tri­a­tion flight in Sep­tem­ber 2020, Con­nor-Ed­wards looked out of her quar­an­tine “prison”, and there was her “knight in shin­ing ar­mor” out­side wav­ing, armed with two pep­per-laden chick­en ro­tis to warm­ly wel­come her home from afar. 2021 be­gan on a hope­ful note, Ed­wards be­ing gift­ed a per­son­al train­er from his wife for his birth­day, con­tin­ued his health and weight loss jour­ney.

“Every­time one door clos­es, a win­dow or a back door opens,” Ed­wards jokes, as al­though Con­nor-Ed­wards’ work con­tract was not re­newed, Ed­wards got a con­tract with Gov­ern­ment In­for­ma­tion and could sup­port the fam­i­ly. In a role re­ver­sal and par­a­digm shift, Con­nor-Ed­wards be­gan suf­fer­ing a nerve-re­lat­ed ill­ness, where the ag­gra­va­tion of an old in­jury caused ex­treme tin­gling in her hands and feet, to the point whereshe had to wear gloves to be able to touch any­thing. She al­so suf­fered a si­nus in­fec­tion and lost her voice for months, and un­der­went a mul­ti­tude of tests, all of which came back nor­mal.

With­out a con­crete an­swer to this day of what she was suf­fer­ing with, Con­nor-Ed­wards de­scribes it plain­ly as “the jour­ney we’re on right now.” Ed­wards was now in the role of care­tak­er, sup­port­ing his wife in more ways than one.

“Beau­ti­ful, fun­ny, every­thing,” were his three thought­ful words to de­scribe his wife. Ed­wards and Con­nor-Ed­wards have faced dou­ble and triple the chal­lenges in 20 years that most cou­ples face in a life­time, and still find ful­fill­ment with each oth­er in their sa­cred mar­riage every sin­gle day.

“His foot, his can­cer, his low vi­sion, his di­a­betes, our love cov­ers it,” Con­nor-Ed­wards says lov­ing­ly. Ed­wards de­scribes him­self as “her pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer,” and gives her a com­bi­na­tion of space and sup­port to be her best self. Their ad­vice to cou­ples re­mains the same, and very sim­ple, “love and for­give­ness”.

They be­lieve that by em­brac­ing these two prin­ci­ples, any cou­ple can thrive. An­oth­er of their se­crets is hold­ing dear the com­ple­men­tar­i­ty of their re­la­tion­ship, as Ed­wards says “there’s no man of the house non­sense here, what­ev­er she does bet­ter she does it, and what I do bet­ter, I do it.”

There re­mains, how­ev­er, a run­ning con­tention on who is the bet­ter cook, but that will be left to be re­solved be­tween hus­band and wife. The pow­er­house cou­ple that is Ray­mond and De­siree Ed­wards have faced many a storm, but al­ways faced them to­geth­er, docked safe­ly in the har­bour of com­fort, self­less­ness and mu­tu­al sup­port, which un­der­pin their love and mar­riage.